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Zothecula writes "Do you think that you'll never be able to afford a robot of your own that isn't a toy? Well, if you can get Swiss robot-maker K-Team Corporation to sell you one, chances are you can easily afford a Kilobot — perhaps even a whole bunch of them. Designed and first built by Harvard University's Self-Organizing Systems Research Group, the three-legged robots aren't much larger than the 3.4-volt button cell batteries that power them, and move by vibrating across smooth, flat surfaces. They were created to study robotic swarming behavior, with the intention that tens, hundreds or even thousands of them could be used simultaneously in one experiment. Harvard has just announced that it has licensed the Kilobot technology to K-Team, which will commercially manufacture the robots so that other groups and institutions can purchase them for their own research."

This project in particular was funded by the NSF and the Wyss Institute, which looks like some sort of incubator funded by Harvard. The gist of the NSF policty is that the grantee retains all rights to the invention/patents/copyrights of the research. This makes sense given the NSF's mission statement: "To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense...."